Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients: Synthesis, Extraction and Separation Methods

Dear Colleagues,

The drug product is composed of the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) and the excipients. API is any substance or mixture of substances that is used in a finished drug product to promote a biological activity for the purpose of diagnosing, preventing, mitigating, treating, or curing a disease. APIs can be small molecules or biologics. They can be synthesized by chemical means, extracted from natural resources, expressed in biological systems, and/or separated from heterogenous mixtures. The quality of APIs is of enormous significance to global health, and thus, processes pertaining to their synthesis or manufacturing, isolation, extraction, separation, packaging, labeling, storage, and distribution are strictly regulated by national and international agencies. Another important aspect of APIs is their affordability, which is a very important consideration in the efforts to bring down the ever-increasing cost of healthcare.

Considering the need for high-quality and affordable APIs, protocols and technologies for their synthesis, extraction, and separation continue to evolve. In this arena, a continuous flow platform, nanotechnology, chemical and enzymatic catalysis, microwave technology, spectroscopic methods, crystal engineering, X-ray diffraction, and many others have been exploited to advance the different stages of the API industry. In this Special Issue on “Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients: Synthesis, Extraction and Separation Methods”, we invite principal investigators who are interested in APIs to contribute original research articles as well as review articles so as to advance fundamental and technical knowledge relevant to APIs synthesis, extraction, separation, and other processes.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Methodology development of new or enhanced chemical processes for APIs;
• Methodology development of new or enhanced extraction protocols and separation technologies for APIs;
• Methodology development of new or enhanced separation protocols and technologies for APIs.

Dr. Rami A. Al-Horani
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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